Talk:Alberta

Contents

I removed the link to the mall, huge though it may be, because I didn't think it fit our Wikitravel:What's an article?. I also removed the link to the mall site as that should go next to the mall's listing in the city or district guide. Comments? Condemnations? Maj 16:19, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

The current policy is pretty clear that attractions should always start out as sections within the parent article, and only when that information becomes large and complex should they be considered for their own article, so this makes sense. -- Ryan 16:31, 4 August 2006 (EDT)

The Alberta article identifies these four regions, listed below with their present (2008/April) descriptions. What are their boundaries? I'd like to add some text to the article making those boundaries clear. Then I'd like to encourage us all to sort the destinations of Alberta into these region articles. JimDeLaHunt 04:22, 2 April 2008 (EDT)

Central Alberta - "rolling hills and agriculture". What's the boundary between Southern and Central Alberta? Does it extend east to the provincial border with Saskatchewan?

Northern Alberta - "the untapped wilderness region north of Edmonton". Presumably this is everything north of Edmonton, but not Edmonton itself. Is the boundary 53.75° North? Highway 1E (but not Edmonton or the Rockies)?

Rocky Mountains (Canada) - "home to Banff and Jasper National Parks". What's the eastern boundary? Is it everything above 4000' altitude? Does it include those parts of the Rockies in British Columbia, or stop at the provincial border?

Heya, Jimmy! The reason why I created the Capital Region thread is because well, It is more specific to Edmonton and it's immideate municipalities. Central Alberta is entirely different, and pertains to the entire Central Alberta. Edmonton Capital Region is just for the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, because we can't really talk about Spruce Grove or the wide open prairie (much) in the Edmonton one. That ones is pertaining to specifically Edmonton, and should have little info (ecxcept maybe get out/just for fun) on the surroundin' municipalities. It's like Vancouver, which has Lower Mainland, the Vancouver article has little to do with Burnaby, West Vancouver, Surrey, or Fort Langley. YEs, Lower Mainland, is bigger (Calgary Met0-1.2 mill, van meto 2.6mill) but I still think Calgary and Edmonton both deserve an article just for their metropolitan regions. That being said, does Calgary need one too? ANd can someone help me with the Edmonton one? Also how do you get it so like on the top it's like North America:Canada:Prairies:Alberta:Central Alberta:Edmonton:Edmonton Capital Region for the region arcitle (Edmonton Capital Region)... Thanks, and sorry, I was in a hurry ;) Edmontonenthusiast 13:01, 23 October 2008 (EDT)Edmontonenthusiast

The Travel Alberta website [1] lists the same four regions, plus promotes Calgary and area and Edmonton and area to regions as well. It seems to define the regions as follows:

- the Rocky Mountain region as Banff and Jasper National Park,

- Alberta South as the US border to just north of Calgary and from the BC border to the Saskatchewan border,

- Central Alberta runs to just north of Edmonton and from the two national parks over to the SK border, and

- Northern Alberta as everything else to the north, from the BC border to the SK border

If we're going to go with existing four regions, these seem like pretty reasonable guides to follow.

With the Edmonton Capital Region, could we just make it a subregion under Central Alberta?

Anyway, once the regions are settled, I'd be happy to whip up one of the new region maps! Shaund 22:50, 23 October 2008 (EDT)

What about htis: North America:Canada:Prairies:Alberta:Central Alberta:Edmonton:Edmonton Capital Region ...Anyways, that would be lovely for you to make metropolitan maps for Calgary Region and Edmonton Capital Region. So should we creat one for Calgary? I think we could use it! :) Edmontonenthusiast 23:01, 23 October 2008 (EDT)

In all region discussions, I think our primary criterion should be, "the traveller comes first". Travellers benefit from shallow region trees (small number of layers from top to bottom) but also 7 +/- 2 divisions within every region. See Wikitravel:Geographical hierarchy#Dividing geographical units. Note that cities "deserving" a region doesn't enter into it. Each city or town is a destination article, so Spruce Grove should be described in its own article, not Edmonton's. The real question is, should the area around Edmonton be described in an Edmonton Capital Region article or in the Central Alberta article? Will travellers come looking for an "Edmonton Capital Region" by name? Is the ECR "climatically, culturally, geographically, or politically coherent"? Will travellers be inconvenienced by looking in the Central Alberta article, rather than an Edmonton Capital Region article, for the links to Edmonton and Spruce Grove? Those are the questions we should discuss. JimDeLaHunt 04:03, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

Honestly, JimDeLaHunt, Edmonton needs the metro area article because Central Alberta is just too general. It includes Vegreville, Red Deer, Jasper, Edson...all places with little-2-no relations to Edmonton Greater Area. Thats why I created. Yeah, it may take away from the Central Article, but I don't think many look at it. They probably look at specific place/districts. But anyways, thats my opinion. Waht do you think¿Edmontonenthusiast 10:26, 24 October 2008 (EDT)

I'm going to let this topic sit for a few days, in the hopes of attracting some other opinions. JimDeLaHunt 04:04, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Guess you won't have to wait long for another opinion :-) I agree with Edmontonenthusiast that Edmonton and Calgary should have regions associated with them. Cities that size have bedroom communities that are connected with them socially and economically, if not always politically. Whether or not those regions should be at the top of the Alberta hierarchy or within a subregion, I'm not sure. There are only 4 regions right now, so I don't think adding two more would hurt.

Possible Alberta regions under proposed reorganization

To take a step back, have we given any thought to how useful the existing four regions are? It looks like they were set up without much discussion. I'm wondering if we pushed it out to 8-9 regions at the Alberta level, we could avoid sub-regions altogether, or at least minimize them? (I'm very much in favour of as flat a region structure as possible) Based on some stuff I read online and various maps, one regional breakdown I came up with is:

* Alberta Badlands which covers the badland and hoodoo riddled ranchland and wheatfields of south-eastern Alberta, including Drumheller, Brooks, Medicine Hat, Stettler, Cypress Hills, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park and Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. The western border, from the US border, would by Hwys 4, 36, 526, 842, 2 and 21; the norther border would be Hwys 53, 608 and 13; the eastern border would be SK and the southern border would be the US border.

* Peace River Valley - covers the Peace and Smokey River valleys in the northern part of the province. I don't have a defined boundary for this region -- it would essentially cut through the middle of the large undeveloped area between the main centers of this region and Central Alberta. It would include Peace River (the AB town), Grande Prairie, Lesser Slave Lake, Fort Chipewyan and Wood Buffalo National Park. Fort McMurray would not be included here since it has no road connection to the other cities and towns in the region.

* Edmonton Capital Region would cover the same towns it currently does. Boundaries roughly appear to be Hwys 770, 43 and 777 in the west; Hwy 18 to the north; Hwys 831, 834 and 833 in the east; and Hwy 616 in the south.

* Central Alberta would cover Edson, Camrose, Red Deer and the other communities in the fast growing Calgary-Edmonton corridor, plus the communities between Hwy 2 and the Swan Hills north of Edmonton.

Shaund, you're thoughts are fantastic! I think they'd work well! What I am wondering is if the region pages (for Calg and Edm) should just be a portal/basic information about the region and the cities, and then have links to those cities, where it could just have information about hte particlualr city. Or should we have it where its a summarization of all the cities? I don't know...so i'm leaving as-is until further notice (or someone else does somehting). Shaund, if you lke, we could work together on Edmonton/Calgary regions where we both work on both together. What do you think? Edmontonenthusiast 21:56, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Edmontonenthusiast, let me answer your question. Wikitravel has conventions for what to cover in region articles, and what to cover in city articles (also known as destination articles). A region article like Edmonton Capital Region describes the region as a whole. What is the region like? What is distinctive about it? It also contains lists of cities, as links to the individual destination articles. It also contains lists of major attractions, the most important ones for travellers to that region, which are pointers to destination articles if the attraction is within the destination. Thus the Edmonton Capital Region should have links to Edmonton and Spruce Grove and other cities in the region, but shouldn't have more than a few pointers about those cities. The Lower Mainland is the containing region around Vancouver. Take a look at that to see how the Edmonton Capital Region article should work. JimDeLaHunt 02:17, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

As others have said, the fewest regions necessary is the way we should go, that's what is usually best for the traveler. Rather than thinking from the city level up (gee, edmonton has stuff around it, I should create an article for it) we should work from the top down (Alberta is huge, let's break it down for the traveler). I don't know Alberta well enough to say if it should remain at 4 regions or if you should go the route that Shaund suggests... but either way, once those larger regions are set, they shouldn't be subdivided unless really necessary... meaning cities nearby to Edmonton should be linked to from Central Alberta (if we stick with the current breakdown), or if you break it down as Shuand suggests, then Eastern Alberta. Cities that are suburbs of Edmonton and likely to be visited from Edmonton can also be noted briefly in Edmonton#Get out, which is the purpose of that section – cacahuatetalk 23:02, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Woah, this is getting long :P! Maybe not as many regions as Shaund says, but sure Edmonton and calgary regions. Although, cacahuate, you make a good point, for suburbs that aren't winthin city limits, why not just put them there, as it is already in Edmonton. Not sure...Edmontonenthusiast 23:06, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Ok, like I said though, work from the top down, getting consensus along the way for each step when you decide to subdivide a region further. Before creating any more region articles, figure out with Shaund, and anyone else familiar with the area, how to break down Alberta properly. Then if you need to break down those regions further, discuss after that. It's gotta work that way, or else it becomes a huge mess, with overlapping regions... and it will become much harder to clean up down the line – cacahuatetalk 23:22, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for the words, cacahuate! If shaund's out there, comment on whar you think :>! Edmontonenthusiast 23:23, 25 October 2008 (EDT)

It's pretty much as cacahuate said... we need to get the main Alberta regions set first and go from there. Hopefully Jim and anyone else familiar with the province will chip in with some comments. The whole process can take several days (or weeks), depending on how many opinions are expressed and how much they differ. As you said above, it's best to leave the regions as-is for now and focus on the Calg and Edm city articles. The regions will come in time.

I can help with Calg and Edm a bit. I'm familiar with Alberta at a high level, but I've only been there three times so I can't provide much in the way of local commentary. Shaund 02:24, 26 October 2008 (EDT)

Do you mean you've only been to AB 3 X? Yeah, we do need some more opinions :> Edmontonenthusiast 02:32, 26 October 2008 (EDT)

No worries, once the region boundaries are settled, I'll add major roads and railroads and post it in the Alberta article. Just need to get agreement on the regions first. Shaund 01:29, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Looking at the official tourism site map, it looks like the current proposal uses the "official" regions for Alberta South (terrible name!), Calgary & Area, Canadian Rockies, and Edmonton & Area, and then differs for the others? Are there any roads, county lines or other natural features that could be used to define the borders of Eastern Alberta and the Peace River Valley? Provided that the borders of each region can be easily defined then this breakdown seems reasonable to me as it does a good job of splitting the province up by its varied terrains and population centers; of course I've only been there twice, so anyone who knows the province better should feel free to ignore me if I'm not making sense... -- Ryan • (talk) • 00:59, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Ryan. All the boundaries are well-defined except Central Alberta-Peace River Valley and Eastern Alberta-Peace River Valley. The Central Alberta-Peace River Valley boundary could be easily set -- Hwy 32/33 or the Athabaska River or some combo of both -- but the Eastern Alberta-Peace River boundary isn't so easy. There's pretty much nothing up there except forest so I drew a line roughly halfway between Hwy 63 (to Fort McMurray) and Hwy 88 (Peace River). If it's important to have a more easily defined boundary, we could use 55 N across to the Athabaska River. It would move Fort McMurray over to Peace River Valley, which isn't a big deal other than Fort McMurray wouldn't be connected by road to the rest of the region. I have a slight preference for my original proposal, but not fussed either way. Shaund 01:29, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

I dug up my old copy of the Milepost, and having looked at the roads I think I better understand how you've divided things. My experience up there was that most of the article-worthy places in the remote regions will be along the major highways, so I suspect your "draw a line through the woods" approach to splitting regions might work best - while roads and such normally are good boundaries, in this case I guess using the roads as borders will place many of the destination articles directly on the region borders, which would defeat the purpose of trying to define clear borders. The only remaining concern would be that there's a big national park in the northeast corner of the state, but provided that park is entirely in the Peace River Valley region then the Peace Valley / Eastern Alberta border looks fine. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:49, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Nice work Shaund! A map always does wonders in helping to figure out the regions. Seeing your breakdown visually now, it's making more sense to me that the Edmonton capital area can be its own top-level region of Alberta. I haven't been there, but Ryan's questions seem to cover any further thoughts I would have... so unless there's any complaints in the next week or two, I'd say move forward... again, nice work guys – cacahuatetalk 02:05, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, guys. I'll let it sit for a week or two to see if there any further comments. Just so you know, the southern boundary of the park that Ryan mentioned (Wood Buffalo NP) will form part of the border between Peace River Valley and Eastern Alberta, so the park will be wholly inside the Peace River Valley region. Shaund 23:54, 28 October 2008 (EDT)

Great work mate (check yur talk page!). Anxious to see this complete! Keep smiling, Edmontonenthusiast 00:22, 29 October 2008 (EDT)

Shaund, I like your 21:44, 25 October 2008 (EDT) regions. In principle, that is. I like going from four regions to eight. I like breaking off Calgary Region and Alberta Badlands from Southern Alberta, and off similarly breaking up Central Alberta and Northern Alberta. I need to go over them with maps to see if I have any tweaks to propose for the borders. In general, I think roads and rivers are a mixed blessing as region boundaries. On the plus side, they are clear. On the minus side, they are frequently inconvenient for travellers, who will find useful destinations on both sides of the road or river, and will want them all in one article. I like the idea of finding empty territory, or minor country roads or rivers, to use as the boundaries. JimDeLaHunt 02:17, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

No worries. I tried to stay away from major highways, but couldn't in all cases. My map wasn't very detailed, so if you can find some nearby minor roads to substitute, that sounds good. Shaund 01:09, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

Good work, once again! Anyways, I think like after we settle this, you finish this, and some other stuff I guess, maybe you could do a simple Calgary Region/Edmonton Cap. Region Map. Shaund, they're so easy, that's because Calgary and Edmonton, if you didn't know, most of it's suburbs are within city limits, and there is just like some suburban municipalities-this can especially said for Calgary. Heh. Whatever, and anyways, good job ;)! Keep smiling, Edmontonenthusiast 11:14, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

Go easy on Shaund - it's awesome that he's helping out with the Alberta map, but before asking for more remember that there are a million articles that need maps, but they are a lot of work to create. Wikitravel:How to draw a map has instructions if you're interested in doing some of the map-making work yourself, otherwise please be patient and rest assured that even if Shaund doesn't do it eventually someone will come along to add the necessary map. -- Ryan • (talk) • 11:31, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

My god this is getting long, ;). Anyways, I am being easy on Shaund, I mean, I was merely just asking, or at least, that was what I was trying to do. Besides, if he doesn't want to he doesn't have to. Keep smiling, Edmontonenthusiast 11:40, 31 October 2008 (EDT)

Wanting to see if there are any more ideas. So basically these can be the region if no more opposition: Edmonton Capital Region, Calgary Region, Central Alberta, Southern Alberta, Badlands, Alberta Rockies, Peace, and eastern Alberta.

Yep, those would be the regions. I'll give it a few more days. If I don't see anything contrary, I'll try to get the change in motion this weekend. Shaund 01:08, 13 November 2008 (EST)

9 cities where? :-\ If you're refering to the graphic, I didn't think that policy applied to graphics, given it's not going to lead to a page that's just a huge list of cities? Nrms 10:20, 27 November 2008 (EST)

Hey EE, as far as I know, the nine city rule applies to linked cities listed in the article; maps can show more than nine if space allows. More importantly though, that map was created to illustrate the proposed new regions. I deliberately included more cities to show where they would fall in the structure and assist people in understanding the proposal. When I create the proper Alberta map for the article page, it'll probably only show the nine cities plus the five other destinations (and maybe Grand Prairie, so there's something in the Peace River Valley region). Shaund 10:53, 27 November 2008 (EST)

OK, I think this has been percolating long enough. I know Jim was thinking of some minor adjustments, but it doesn't sound like it would affect the number of regions or where any of the cities or other destinations would fall. I'm going to move ahead and start implementing... Shaund 11:35, 29 November 2008 (EST)

I've outlined what needs to be done to implement the new Alberta regions below. Feel fee to plunge forward and do any of the steps that haven't been completed. When a step is finished, please note it at the end of the bullet point. Shaund 11:35, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Okay, I am looking through this-what does Red Deer or Ft McMurray have of interest to the traveller? I don't get it. I am thinking we might be better to go to other ones? Not many people want to go see some oilsands and almost kill themselves doing it or stay a week in Red Deer. edmontonenthusiast [ee].T.A.L.K. 13:28, 29 November 2008 (EST).

Hey EE, if you can find cities that are better to include, go ahead. But please also keep in mind that one of the things we try to do is have a bit of balance across the regions. So while Red Deer and Fort McMurray aren't stellar tourist attractions, they are significant sized centers that provide some balance to our regions. Fort McMurray is also an important destination for business visitors and they could also make use of our Wikitravel guide to help find places to eat, stuff to do, etc. Shaund 01:50, 1 December 2008 (EST)

As master TEXUGO says, let's discuss this. Edmonton and Calgary are quite accessable without a car. You can get around most areas by transit and central areas are very walkable. Rural/resort areas are not unnaccesable with out a car. Though it is definitely easier but you can take bus tours etc. It is very recommended to have a car, but not neccesity. There you go. I do not see why we needed to talk about this. edmontonenthusiast [ee].T.A.L.K. 13:35, 30 November 2008 (EST).

Previous wording: "Car travel is essential unless you plan on staying within the most central districts of an area. Rural Alberta is completely unaccessible unless you have a car."

Ee's rewrite: "Car travel is not necessary, as both cities have very good transit and the most of stuff to do is in central areas which are easy to walk, but sometimes they are convinent and great for if you aren't just staying in one city."

I reverted the change because this is the article of the province as a whole, not of two cities, and to experience the province as a whole is very difficult without a car. Cities are not connected by regular convenient public transportation and to imply otherwise smacks of cover-up. The original wording was more concise, eloquent, and accurate in my opinion. It would be a shame to rely on publicly available transportation to see places like Banff and Jasper. And let's have a rational discussion-- please drop the insolence. It doesn't become you. Texugo 13:48, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Well it was talking about the cities. I do not see why we can't say the cities have easy access and the rural areas are almost necessary to have a car. It's not a cover up and we do have convinient public transit - why are you saying that? The C-Train, Edmonton buses and Edmonton LRT are all very good and I have heard it about Calgary's buses. What do you want? edmontonenthusiast [ee].T.A.L.K. 13:51, 30 November 2008 (EST).

Convenient public transit within the central districts of the two metropolitan areas, yes. Convenient public transit which extends across the province, no. The previous version already gave an exception for the areas that do have it, and in terms of Alberta as a whole, that's exactly what it is: an exception. Texugo 13:59, 30 November 2008 (EST)

Quit saying it is just the central areas, you would be surprised how well serviced the suburbs are. Like I said, I can put info down for both. I don't like the perception that you need a car in Calgary and Edmonton areas, and thats what it was giving. edmontonenthusiast [ee].T.A.L.K. 17:27, 30 November 2008 (EST).

This article is about the province of Alberta, so getting around the province is what needs to be described. Getting around Edmonton and Calgary should be described in those city articles. I think the original wording was more accurate tooooooo – cacahuatetalk 21:55, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I think we need mention to both. For the traveller advantage, it is nice to give a blurb on just the fact that it isn't everywhere in the province. I do not see why we can't have both. I cannot believe we are making a big deal of this. edmontonenthusiast [ee].T.A.L.K. 23:39, 30 November 2008 (EST).

Both are already mentioned, with the emphasis being on the province as a whole, as it should be. Texugo 23:45, 30 November 2008 (EST)

I think Texugo and Cachuate are right on this one. The Alberta Get around section should be about how to go from region to region -- Edmonton to Grande Praire or Calgary to Drumheller -- the strength of an individual city's transit system is pretty irrelevant. And given that the car is the easiest way to see Alberta as a whole, that should be the main message. I'm not opposed to including a brief mention of the strength of Edmonton's and Calgary's public transit systems, but it shouldn't overshadow the main message.

That said, I find the Get around section contradictory. By car uses strong language like "car travel is essential" and "Rural Alberta is completely inaccessible unless you have a car". But one section later, By bus says "Greyhound Canada offers service between almost all centres, large and small". Perhaps a more accurate way to describe car travel in Alberta is "Travelling by car is the most convenient way to get around Alberta and essential to see remote parts of the province"? Shaund 01:40, 1 December 2008 (EST)